Last Updated on November 1, 2026 by Michelle
How intentional living, meaningful connections and small decisions can help us become the people we aspire to be.
I attended a networking event last week.
For anyone who knows me well, that might sound rather surprising.
I categorically dislike networking events as I do not feel comfortable talking to strangers. Given the choice between attending an evening reception and spending a quiet evening at home, I would almost always choose the latter.
But this time, I wanted to go.
It was a partners’ evening organised by Young Women’s Leadership Connect, a network dedicated to supporting young women in Singapore.
My company had partnered with the organisation on an earlier event, which I’d been heavily involved in organising. Through that experience, I’d become interested in the work they were doing.
At the partners’ evening, I learned something that made me admire the organisation even more.
The network is run by volunteers.
Women who have full-time jobs, careers, families and responsibilities of their own, yet choose to dedicate their time and energy to helping younger women develop their leadership potential.
I found that genuinely inspiring.
As I spoke with several committee members, I shared my interest in contributing. Perhaps I could mentor younger women navigating their careers, leadership and frankly life journeys. Or perhaps I could participate as a panelist at one of their events, sharing some of the lessons I’ve learned over the years. This is very much what I want to do as part of Being Your Own Role Model work.
I don’t know whether anything will come from those conversations.
But I was glad I’d gone.
Because on my way home, I realised something.
I hadn’t simply attended another networking event.
I had deliberately placed myself in an environment that brought me closer to the person I want to become.
And that small realisation has stayed with me.
What If Personal Growth Is Also About Our Circumstances?
When we think about personal growth, we often focus on ourselves.
We talk about changing our mindset, developing better habits, building discipline or becoming more confident.
I believe deeply in all of these things.
Over the years, I’ve built 37 habits that have become part of my everyday life. Some are simple, like logging my daily expenses. Others involve learning, reading, exercising, journaling or consistently showing up for something that matters to me.
These habits have changed me in ways I couldn’t have imagined when I first started.
But lately, I’ve been thinking about another dimension of personal growth.
What if becoming the person we want to be isn’t only about changing ourselves, but also about changing the circumstances we put ourselves in?
Think about how differently we behave depending on where we are and whom we’re with.
A conversation with someone curious and ambitious can make us see possibilities we’d never considered.
A beautiful, peaceful environment can encourage us to slow down and think more deeply.
A new experience can introduce us to interests we didn’t know we had.
And an invitation we might ordinarily decline can open a door to a future we want.
Our surroundings don’t determine who we become. But they certainly influence what we notice, what we imagine and what we believe is possible.
The more I think about this, the more I realise that designing our lives isn’t just about deciding what we want.
It’s also about creating the conditions in which that life can begin to grow.
Sometimes We Need to Say Yes to a Different Version of Ourselves
If I’d evaluated the Young Women’s Leadership Connect invitation purely through the lens of my current preferences, I might have declined.
An evening networking event after a full working day?
Definitely not my first choice.
But I wasn’t making that decision solely as the person I am today.
I was thinking about the person I’m becoming.
In the next chapter of my life, I want to spend more time sharing what I’ve learned, mentoring others, speaking about subjects I care deeply about and contributing to conversations that help people design more meaningful lives.
I want my world to become bigger as I get older, not smaller.
I want to meet people with different experiences, perspectives and ambitions.
And I want to use the knowledge and experience I’ve accumulated over the years in ways that might make a difference to someone else.
When I thought about the invitation from that perspective, attending felt like a natural decision.
I didn’t need to become someone who suddenly loves networking.
I simply needed to recognise that this particular environment was connected to something I genuinely cared about. And it really wasn’t so bad. I attended the event, listened to a panelist session. Post the prepared event, I went right up to a few of the committee members to let them know of my interest and background and next steps. Then I left ◡̈
Personal growth doesn’t always require us to force ourselves into uncomfortable situations for the sake of becoming more adventurous or confident.
Sometimes it means becoming clearer about what matters enough to us that we’re willing to do something differently.
And sometimes, the most meaningful opportunities begin with an ordinary decision to show up.
Creating Spaces Where Bigger Dreams Feel Natural
Another example has been on my mind lately.
In a few weeks, I’ll be spending two days with a founder friend for our second annual founder’s onsite.
We each have our own businesses that we’re building alongside our current careers.
Our businesses are still young. We have ideas, ambitions and many unanswered questions.
But we share something that I find incredibly valuable.
We genuinely believe in each other’s potential.
I want her business to succeed beyond her wildest dreams. And I know she wants the same for mine.
Last year, we decided to create an annual tradition of stepping away from our everyday routines to spend time reflecting on our progress and imagining what might come next.
This year, we’ve planned two days to look back at 2026, celebrate what we’ve accomplished, acknowledge what hasn’t worked and imagine where we want to be ten years from now.
We’ll also think carefully about what we want to achieve in 2027.
What excites me most isn’t the agenda itself.
It’s the opportunity to spend uninterrupted time in a space where both of us feel free to dream.
Where our ambitions aren’t treated as unrealistic simply because we haven’t achieved them yet.
Where we can challenge each other, encourage each other and imagine possibilities that might seem distant from our current lives.
I don’t know exactly what our businesses will look like in ten years.
But I do know that spending time in this environment makes me more excited about finding out.
And here’s what I find particularly interesting.
We didn’t wait for these circumstances to happen to us. We created them.
We chose to establish an annual tradition.
We chose to make time for reflection.
We chose to surround ourselves with conversations about possibility rather than limitation.
And we chose to take our future ambitions seriously, even while they’re still taking shape.
Perhaps that’s one of the most powerful things we can do for our future selves.
Create spaces where the lives we want begin to feel possible.
Your Future Life Doesn’t Have to Wait for Your Current Life to End
For a long time, I imagined that the next phase of my life would begin when I eventually stepped away from my corporate career.
There would be a moment when one chapter ended and another began.
More time for writing. More opportunities to speak and mentor. More freedom to explore the ideas and experiences that excite me.
But over the past few years, something interesting has happened.
Parts of that future life have already begun appearing in my present one.
I started writing regularly about the ideas that eventually became the BYORM philosophy.
I began thinking more intentionally about how I wanted the next twenty or thirty years of my life to feel.
I developed habits that support the person I want to become.
I started having conversations about purpose, aging, happiness and personal growth with people I might never otherwise have connected with.
And now, I’m beginning to explore opportunities to contribute beyond my current professional role.
None of these things required me to wait for a particular date.
They simply required me to start.
This has changed the way I think about life transitions.
We often imagine reinvention as a dramatic event.
We leave a job, move to another country, start a business or make some other significant change.
But perhaps reinvention often begins much earlier, through a series of smaller decisions that gradually reshape our lives.
A conversation.
A new habit.
An invitation accepted.
A commitment made.
An afternoon spent working on an idea we care about.
Individually, these moments might seem insignificant.
But over time, they create a different set of circumstances.
And those circumstances create new possibilities.
We don’t always need to change our entire lives before we can start becoming someone new.
Sometimes we can begin by making room for that person in the life we’re already living.
The Environments We Choose Shape What We Become
I see this principle in many areas of my life.
I’ve been learning French because I want to spend an extended period living in Paris and feel comfortable having everyday conversations with locals.
I could wait until I arrive in Paris to begin learning.
Instead, I practise now.
Each small conversation makes that future experience feel a little more real.
I’ve also been gradually transforming my home into a space filled with art, colour and beauty.
Not because I need a more impressive home, but because I want my everyday surroundings to reflect how I hope to live—curiously, creatively and with an appreciation for beautiful things.
Even the way I think about friendships has evolved.
I increasingly value relationships where we can share our aspirations, talk openly about life and encourage each other to keep growing.
These choices may seem unrelated.
Learning a language. Creating a beautiful home. Attending an event. Planning an annual retreat.
But to me, they’re connected.
They’re all ways of creating an environment that supports the life I want to live.
And none of them requires a complete reinvention overnight.
We Can’t Control Every Circumstance, But We Can Influence Some
Of course, life doesn’t always give us the freedom to choose our circumstances.
There are responsibilities, unexpected challenges and periods when our options are limited.
Sometimes the people around us, the environments we’re in or the demands on our time aren’t entirely within our control.
I don’t believe that every difficulty can be solved by simply making better choices.
But I do believe it’s worth paying attention to the areas where we have some influence.
Perhaps we can’t change our jobs today, but we can begin learning something that opens future possibilities.
Perhaps we can’t travel as much as we’d like, but we can expose ourselves to new ideas through books and conversations.
Perhaps we don’t yet know anyone working in the field we’re interested in, but we can attend an event or reach out to someone whose work inspires us.
Perhaps we can’t dedicate entire days to our dreams, but we can protect an hour each week.
The circumstances we create don’t have to be dramatic.
They simply have to move us, however gradually, toward the life we want.
And sometimes, they may introduce possibilities we hadn’t even imagined.
Let Your Future Self Influence the Decisions You Make Today
One of the ideas at the heart of BYORM is this:
“I don’t make decisions as the person I am. I make decisions as the person I’m becoming.”
I’ve always thought of this as a way to guide my daily choices.
But my experience last week helped me see another dimension of it.
It’s not only about choosing what to do.
It’s also about choosing where to place ourselves.
Which conversations to join.
Which relationships to nurture.
Which experiences to seek.
Which environments to create.
And which opportunities deserve a yes, even when they’re outside our usual routines.
Because every time we intentionally place ourselves in circumstances that reflect our aspirations, we make our future lives a little less distant.
We begin to see ourselves in places we once only imagined.
We meet people who are already doing things we’d like to do.
We discover ways to contribute that we hadn’t previously considered.
And perhaps, without realising it, we begin to become the people we’ve been imagining.
I don’t know whether my conversations at the Young Women’s Leadership Connect event will lead to a mentorship opportunity or a speaking invitation.
I hope they might.
But even if they don’t, I don’t consider the evening wasted.
I met people whose commitment to helping others inspired me.
I expressed an intention that matters to me.
And I took one small step toward the arena in which I hope to contribute more meaningfully in the years ahead.
That feels worthwhile.
As I look toward the next chapter of my life, I’m increasingly convinced that the future isn’t something I simply have to wait for.
It’s something I can begin creating through the circumstances I choose today.
And perhaps that’s a question worth asking ourselves, whatever stage of life we’re in.
If you already knew the person you wanted to become ten years from now, what circumstances would you start creating today?
Not someday.
Not when life becomes less busy.
Not when everything is perfectly aligned.
But now.
Because the life we want to live may begin long before we realise we’ve arrived.
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